i don't watch a lot of WWE these days. not because of some console war AEW v WWE bullshit, but because of a lot of what you see here. don't get me wrong, this match is one of the greatest examples of making chicken salad out of chicken shit i have ever seen, but there's a lot of shit to wade through.
i wouldn't fault anyone for turning off the sound so you don't have to listen to Jerry Lawler, JBL, and Michael Cole at their dirt worst as they call this match. they sneer through ugly, stupid jokes, heckle their little person counterparts, and do their best to turn the whole thing into a clown show.
but this is pro wrestling too. this is what pro wrestling was and all-too-frequently still is. pro wrestling is an exploitative business to its core, all the way back to its much-mythologized carnival origins1. it should say something that Donald Trump, the exploiter-in-chief, the man who has never given anything and has only taken and taken and taken his entire life, that black hole of humanity, that endlessly sucking parasite idolizes the greatest carny to ever live, Vince McMahon.
to the point: they sent these men out to be a joke. they sent these men out so that almost 16,000 people in the Izod Center and 100,000 people watching at home would laugh at them. a sideshow. freaks. step right up to Vince McMahon's three-ring circus.
the combatants were El Torito - aka Mascarita Dorada, a 14-year veteran of Mexico's mini-estrella scene - and Hornswoggle, a 10-year veteran who Vince had brought into WWE with a leprechaun gimmick2 8 years prior.
by the end they had them on their feet. in the stands and in the back.
fuckin' pro wrestling.
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and who are bigger marks than wrestling promoters themselves?
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named "Little Bastard." no, i am not kidding.